


Two hopeless idiots walk into a fire station

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Non-Magical, Graves is not much better, Jacob is so very unsubtle, M/M, Newt is a shambles, Tina and Queenie are both incredibly long suffering, and Theseus is not actually involved ffs Graves you muppet, fireman!Graves, niffler is a cat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-26 08:19:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15659379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: Fireman Graves saves Newt's cat from the certain doom of being stuck in a tree. Newt, naturally, falls in love.“Newt,” Tina began slowly. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through.”He gave her puppy eyes. “My bisexual ass is in crisis here,” he said plaintively. “You can’t expect me to think.”“Your bisexual assisa crisis,” she corrected.





	1. Chapter 1

“Tina,” Newt said into the phone with complete sincerity, “How do I set fire to my flat and make it look like an accident?”

There was a long pause.

“Tina, this is important.”

“… I really can’t tell if you’re joking or not and I really can’t tell you how much this worries me.”

“There is no joke. I’m serious Tina, serious as, as - Heath Ledger would take one look at me and ask why I’m so serious, that’s how serious I am.”

Shuffling sounds from down the line. Newt swapped the phone to his other ear and balanced it against his shoulder to free up both hands for petting Niffler, because Niffler was Newt’s perfect little matchmaker, “Yes you are, you’re Mummy’s favourite munchkin aren’t you -”

“Newt, you’re talking to the cat.”

He retrieved the phone and put it back to his ear. “You were taking too long to respond! Are you going to help me with my arsonous life calling or not?”

Tina mumbled what may have been an exasperated sigh or may have been a muffled swear word, it was hard to tell. “Don’t plot crimes on the phone, dumbass,” she said finally, and that, as far as Newt was concerned, was as good as sold.

“Jacob’s?” he asked with disgusting levels of chirp and happiness.

“Jacob’s,” Tina agreed grimly. “Twelve minutes, Scamander, and I want marshmallows for this conversation.”

* * *

“… so Niffler’s stuck up the tree, right,” Newt said seventeen minutes later, gesturing wildly with his latest sugar-filled monstrosity, “And she’s properly stuck this time, she’s not pretending, and I couldn’t just  _leave_  her there -”

“So you called the fire brigade?”

“So I called the fire brigade!”

Tina nodded and picked out another chocolate-soaked marshmallow from her drink. The only tree near Newt’s cramped apartment was a branching elm that came almost up to his balcony, one that Niffler was perfectly capable of going up, down, left, right and all around. It was so easy to climb that even Tina had used it - more than once, she might add - as a way up when Newt had locked himself out of his flat and needed her to break in and retrieve the key. There was no way on heaven or earth that Niffler got herself  _stuck_ in the elm tree.

On the other hand, Newt was exactly the sort of over-dramatic sod to panic about his fur-baby and call out a fireman to rescue her if she so much as squeaked at him. Why was Tina not surprised.

“And then what?” she prompted.

Newt shook himself back to the present. “And then,” he said in a hushed voice, “the  _fireman dude_  arrived.”

She choked. Jacob, busy doing something arcane to the coffee machine behind the counter, looked up and made as if to help her; Tina waved to let him know she was ok (debatable) and refocused on Newt. “The fireman dude?” she repeated incredulously.

“Tina, he was  _perfection_  in eyebrows and a uniform, you should have seen the way he  _scowled_  at me - and his arms, did I mention his arms, and Niffler  _liked_  him, she was genuinely purring and you know she’s a good judge of character. I think - Tina, I think the fireman’s my soulmate and I’m going to marry him.”

This was exactly why Tina had demanded marshmallows. If Jacob served bourbon at his bakery she’d have had bourbon, but as he stubbornly resisted her very reasonable suggestions she was stuck with marshmallows.

“Newt,” she began slowly. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through.”

He gave her puppy eyes. “My bisexual ass is in crisis here,” he said plaintively. “You can’t expect me to  _think_.”

“Your bisexual ass  _is_  a crisis,” she corrected. The puppy eyes got impossibly larger and more pleading. She blocked them with her mug and took a scalding gulp of chocolate.

“Tina, bestest of best friends, most wonderful and amazing of all people -”

“Ok.” She slammed the mug down on the table with determination and force, except quietly, because Jacob had other customers in his bakery and Tina wasn’t raised in a barn. So, put. She put the mug down on the table with determination and force. “Lay it on me, Newt. I see the fire connection, but why has the fireman -”

“The  _exceedingly hot and sexy_  fireman.”

“- why has the exceedingly hot and sexy fireman suddenly inspired you to burn your flat down.”

Newt leaned eagerly forward. “The plan,” he said conspiratorially, “The plan is to burn it down  _just enough_  for the fireman to come and dramatically rescue me from it.”

Tina closed her eyes.

“And, see, he’ll be so impressed by how calm and cool I am under pressure -”

She fought the urge to tip her head back in despair.

“- that afterwards he’ll be extra attentive to make sure I’m ok, and I’ll be there in my best pyjama bottoms and be  _effortlessly suave_  -”

Pressed her lips together to stifle a snort.

“- and he’ll ask me for my number and I’ll say something devastating like  _I’d say you know where I live but I’ll have to give you the number of my hotel room instead_  or something like that -”

Delusion, thy name is Newt.

“- at which point he’ll offer to let me crash on his couch because he’s just that gentlemanly and it wouldn’t do to leave Niffler out in the cold, and in thanks I’ll cook him dinner and he’ll fall in love with my lasagna first and then with me and it’ll be  _perfect._ ”

Tina held up a finger. She needed a moment to regain composure.

“Wouldn’t it -” Nope, composure not yet regained. Hang on. She took a deep breath and tried again. “Wouldn’t it be easier for Niffler to get stuck in the tree again?” she asked. “Easier and less homeless-making?”

Newt sat back, appalled. “I can’t risk my baby like that!” he protested. “She’ll never forgive me!”

“But you’re more than happy to  _burn her house down_.” She retrieved her mug and fished about with her spoon to get the last marshmallow out. “Just think how much easier my life would be,” she mused, “if I didn’t spend so much of it worrying about you.”

“You’re right,” Newt said decisively. Tina froze with her spoon halfway to her mouth. “I can’t burn down Niffler’s home, she’d be devastated. I need to find a way to set a big enough fire to summon the fireman but still leave Niffler’s sunbeam spots intact.” He took a long slurp of his caramel toffee chocolate whipped mocha frappa cappa  _thing_  and got most of the cream on his nose. “A big enough fire…” he repeated, deep in thought.

_Save me,_  Tina mouthed to Jacob. He offered her a supportive grin and pushed through the swing doors to the kitchen to get her a slice of the good cake, the one that non-favorite customers weren’t allowed to know about because it took eighteen hours to make and Jacob had to sleep at some point. That cake. Because Jacob was a life-saver and Tina loved him.

“You could try a plan that doesn’t endanger your life and the life of everyone else in your apartment block,” she said to Newt, like the hopeful optimist she was.

Newt squinted at her and tapped his finger on his chin. “Nah,” he dismissed. “I need a big enough fire to summon the fireman but I need to leave enough of the flat unburnt in case they send the wrong fireman and I have to try again…”

_Queenie_ , Tina texted under the table.  _Hide the matches._


	2. Chapter 2

_Queenie,_  the text from Tina read.  _Hide the matches._

_Funny you should mention it,_  Queenie texted back, artfully shielding her phone with her elbow and maintaining unbroken eye contact with Graves.

“… but what if I rescued him from a  _small_  fire,” Graves continued. “Just a little one. All I want to do is carry him out the building bridal style and give him CPR, that’s not too much to ask, right?”

“I’m fairly certain your job is to  _stop_  fires,” Queenie said dryly.

Graves shook his head, slow and solemn and one step away from a long suffering sigh. “No no, see, that’s Smokey the bear’s job.  _My_  job is to rescue people from fires,” he explained. “Which means, ergo, logically, ipso facto, that I need a fire to rescue him from, savvy?”

“Graves, please stop.”

“Q. E. D.”

“ _Please._ ”

He slurped his coffee with far more smugness than the conversation warranted. Queenie hid her giggle in a hasty smile and turned to Jacob, pushing his way into the kitchen through the heavy swing door.

“All ok, love?” she asked as he made a beeline for the cupboard.

“Grand,” he confirmed, pausing just long enough to steal a kiss before digging out the krantz cake. “Your sister, on the other hand… “ He made a so-so motion with his hand.

Queenie frowned, thinking of the strange text Tina had sent. “Newt troubles?” she hazarded.

“Newt troubles,” Jacob confirmed.

“And Newt troubles are…?” Graves asked, already halfway to pushing his chair back from the table. He’d never met Queenie’s sister but he’d heard enough about her - and even if he hadn’t, he was hardly going to let a girl get harassed in a bakery of all places. Half the point of being a tightly muscled fireman, surely, was to loom threateningly in the background while idiots suddenly tripped over their words and found better places to be.

“Sweetie, sit,” Queenie said, putting a hand on his arm. “Newt’s a friend, it’s not that sort of trouble.”

He sat, but didn’t relax. “What sort of trouble then?”

“Newt,” Jacob declared dramatically, “has fallen in love. For real this time, apparently.”

“Oh no, again?” Queenie leaned back in her chair. She shouldn’t laugh, she really shouldn’t, but on the other hand, “Poor Tina, no wonder she needs cake. Who’s he found this time?”

“Either a fireman or a policeman, I think.” Jacob wrinkled his nose as he tried to pick through the fast-paced info-dump Newt had given him while waiting for Tina to arrive. “Definitely a man in a uniform, but the details are hazy.”

Graves and Queenie perked up almost in sync. “A fireman?” Graves asked.

“Maybe you know him!” Queenie added. She shooed Jacob towards the door. “Find out which fireman, go, go!”

“ _Maybe_  fireman,” Jacob stressed, but he saluted with the hand not carrying cake and turned to go back out front with the determination of a man on a mission. A not particularly  _subtle_  man on a mission, but then, subtle never worked with Newt so it was probably for the best.

“So,” Graves started once Jacob had gone. “‘Oh no, again’? Should I ask?”

Queenie raised an eyebrow. “I thought we were talking about  _your_  love life?”

“My love life is a barren wasteland of daydreams and near misses, I’d much rather gossip about your sister’s friends that I’ve never met. Spill.”

“You, Mr Barren Wasteland, are  _awful_. And no, I shan’t. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Graves made a face. “You’re no fun,” he told her. “And I’m out of coffee. Where does Jacob keep the instant?”

Queenie pointed. “Third from the left, the jar labelled  _heathen_. Inbetween the seven other kinds of decent coffee you could be drinking instead.” She paused, then added tartly, “And I’ll have you know that I’m more fun than you know how to handle. It’s one of my many charms.”

Graves was saved from answering by the door swinging open again. Jacob walked through, a somewhat bemused expression on his face as he looked sideways at Graves and tried (failed) to adopt a casual nonchalance.

“Well?” Graves prompted when the silence stretched on. “Which fireman? C’mon Kowalski, I’m invested in this story now. Don’t leave me hanging.”

Jacob cleared his throat. “He doesn’t actually know,” he hedged.

“What does the guy look like?” Graves tried to run through which of the squad had been called out recently and who this Newt may have fallen for. Delgado, maybe? Abernathy? Probably not Abernathy. No, wait - Theseus, everyone loved Theseus. It had to be him. “Tall, slightly curly hair, freckles?”

“He, ah.” Jacob glanced somewhat frantically at Queenie. Graves, thankfully, was still frowning into space and trying to work out if  _Newt and Theseus_  seemed vaguely familiar because he’d heard it before or if the two names just worked well together. Jacob attempted to clear his throat again and turned it into a cough half way. “Apparently he had arms.”

“He had  _arms_?”

Jacob nodded. “Newt was quite insistent on this.” He focussed resolutely on Graves’ forehead to stop himself looking at the arms in question. In the verging-on-too-small black tank Graves was wearing they were very much on display and, in fairness to Newt, somewhat hard to miss.

“Oh my god,” Queenie squeaked, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. She stared wide-eyed at Graves. “ _Arms._ ”

More nodding. “Yes,” Jacob said, an over-exaggerated wink heavily implied in his tone of voice. “Arms.”

“Huh.” Graves shrugged. Arms were a weird thing to notice, but… “I’ll let Theseus know to roll his sleeves up. So, you reckon Newt will ask him out or should I set them up for a blind date or what?”

“Oh my god,” Queenie repeated.

Jacob wordlessly went to fetch more cake.


	3. Chapter 3

The phone buzzed.

Seeing as the phone often buzzed and it had yet to be someone telling him he’d won the lottery, Newt rolled over and ignored it.

The phone buzzed again, more insistently.

“No,” Newt said into his pillow.

The phone  _rang_.

Newt fumbled an arm out for it. “I said no,” he told the person on the other end of the line, and hung up.

Unfortunately for him, this counted as sufficient signal to Niffler that he was up, awake, and reading and waiting to provide food. With a happy  _prrp_  she relocated herself from the foot of the bed to Newt’s head, stuck a paw in his ear, and attempted to suffocate him with her tail.

The phone rang. Again.

“This,” Newt snarled into it around a mouthful of cat fur, “is an ungodly hour of the morning and it better be important or so help me god.”

“This,” Tina replied, completely unfazed, “is the entirely reasonable hour of ten forty. Go have a coffee and call me back.”

She then had the audacity - the  _audacity_  - to hang up on him. “Don’t listen to her,” Newt told Niffler. “Reasonable doesn’t start until after twelve. Nothing about mornings are  _reasonable._ ”

She mewed impatiently at him in response and trotted over to the door, not even looking back to see if Newt would follow. Newt pulled a face at her retreating trousers. “Ten forty,” he mumble as he hauled himself out of bed and pulled on a pyjama top. “Reasonable. Keh.”

Fifteen minutes later his teeth were brushed, his hair wasn’t, Niffler was fed, and Newt was caffeinated. He refilled his mug and set it decisively on the kitchen counter.

“Ok,” he said into the phone. “Hit me.”

“… did you read the texts I sent?” Tina asked.

Balls. Tina sent texts? “Of course,” he lied smoothly, and flicked over to speaker so he could sneakily open the text in the background.

“ _And_?” Tina demanded.

“Uh, give me a sec.”

_YOUR BROHTER IS A FIRMAN????_ the first text read. Shortly followed by:  _and you were going to mention thsi WHEN_

“You’re reading them now, aren’t you.”

Next closed the app. “Am not,” he protested. “I was just wondering why you still refuse to use predictive text. Honestly, spelling mistakes? So antiquated.”

“Forgetting that my phone literally tells me when you’ve read a message?” Tina shot back. “So antiquated. Also so beside the point - your  _brother._  Is a fireman. A  _fireman._ ”

“Uh,” Newt hedged. “He is, yes.”

“And I had to find out from my  _sister_.”

“Should I ask how your sister knows that my brother is a fireman?” Newt asked.

“She came across a Theseus and guessed, it’s not a common name. It’s also not the point -  _why_  are we planning how to burn down a precise percentage of your flat when we could instead be asking Theseus to just, I don’t know,  _introduce you_ to the love of your live _._  Without the arson. Or the death.”

“You mean you’re actually helping me with the plan?” Newt asked hopefully. “I thought it was ridiculous and idiotic and illegal and never going to happen?”

“It is. Hence Theseus.”

Newt deflated and pulled a face at the phone.

“No.”

“But the lack of property damage -”

“Listen, would you ever date someone’s little brother? Little brothers are annoying. No one dates a little brother.”

There was a pause as Tina turned that over. Newt used it to relocate, because the tall stools by his kitchen counter might be awfully neat and space saving, but keeping himself upright without a chair back was effort. He glanced between the armchair (Niffler’s, occupied) and the paw-print fleecy cat bed (also Niffler’s, very rarely occupied) and made the sensible choice. A couple of kicks to reshape the cat bed into something resembling comfortable, an awkward slow crouch to avoid spilling his coffee, and he was sat. Win.

“Ok, I see how that’s an issue,” Tina started.

“I hear a but.” He could also, on an unrelated note, hear a butt. Namely Niffler’s butt, hopping down from the chair Newt had wanted to sit in mere  _seconds_  ago and trotting over to park itself in Newt’s lap.

“ _But_  I still think that at least getting Theseus on board would be a better option than arson.”

Niffler pushed her way under Newt’s arm and presented her fluffy behind for stroking and her fluffy tail for inhaling. “Why,” he asked her as he fended it off and barely avoided sneezing.

“It’s  _arson_ ,” Tina answered. “Most friends don’t have to convince their friends that this is a bad idea. Most friends would just laugh it off as a joke, because most friends aren’t friends with dangerous catastrophes masquerading as people, because most friends have  _sense_.”

“Ow,” Newt said as Niffler balanced her entire weight on his ankle bone.

Tina huffed, but she sounded apologetic about it. “Sorry. That was harsh. I don’t actually think you’re a dangerous catastrophe. Just a minor one.”

Niffler flung herself down in Newt’s lap, belly up and arms stretched over her head. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” Newt told her, and obligingly provided belly rubs.

“Newt, are you talking to the cat again?”

Newt refocused on the phone that he definitely hadn’t forgotten. “No!” he said. “Me? Never. Would I do such a thing?”

Wordless frustration emanated from the speakers. “Just promise me, no arson?”

“But the plan!”

“ _No arson_. And I’ll help you get a date.”

Newt pouted. “Fine, no arson.” He paused, then added sullenly, “I wouldn’t  _actually_  have burnt the flat down, you know. Have some faith in me.”

“Last time you fell in love you broke three bones and a window,” Tina reminded him dryly. “Forgive me for being cautious.”

“Ack, really? Low blow, Goldstein. Exactly none of that was my fault.”

“I distinctly recall skiving off work to drive your sorry ass to the hospital. I  _also_  recall spending the rest of the evening talking you out of trying again.”

Newt paused to consider that. His memory of the event was admittedly hazy, the sort of odd blankness you get from really good painkillers. It was potentially possible that Tina had a point.

“Fine,” he allowed magnanimously. “You’re forgiven.” And, swiftly moving the conversation on, “So now that you’ve promised to help, what’s the plan? The definitely-no-Theseus plan?”

Tina hummed.

“I’m working on it. When can you get to Jacob’s?”

“Only for the next…” Newt leaned, trying to check the clock on the wall without disrupting Niffler. “Fifty three minutes, or same time tomorrow. Or any time day after tomorrow. I’m on late shift this week, but I’ve got Thursday off.”

“Thursday, then. I’ll text you a time. Wear something nice.”

“Wear something - Tina!” Newt held the phone out to stare at it accusingly. “Tina, you can’t just set me up on a date like that! Where’s the finesse? The panache? And how do you even know which fireman - hey, Tina, how do you know which fireman it is? I don’t even know which fireman it is! Tina, Tina are you listening to me?”

“Thursday!” Tina chirped with far too much smug cheeriness, and hung up. 

Bereft of best friend, Newt transferred his appalled questions to the cat.

“Where something  _nice_ , can you imagine?” he asked. Niffler blinked sleepily back at him. “The nerve! As if anything I wear is ever not nice. I could turn up in literally anything I own and blow the fireman away.” Blow the fireman, heh. Focus, Newt. 

He frowned, running through outfits in his mind. “Nice, it’s all nice. Everything I wear is nice.” Then, again, with mounting horror: “Everything I wear is  _nice_. Niffler, it’s  _all nice._ ”

Niffler yawned.

“But you don’t understand,” he told her. “What if he doesn’t like nice? Niffler,  _what if he doesn’t like nice?”_


End file.
